By George Clifford

In my teens, I thought some about heaven and decided that I wanted no part of it. Heaven connoted the place that good people, or Christians, or some other select group went when they died. Although I did not think of heaven as a physical place, my thoughts were quite foggy about what people did in heaven. Our cultural stereotype of angelic beings strumming harps in a place evocative of an impressionist painting left me, a non-musician, unimpressed. Whatever enjoyment one might derive from harp playing seemed rather limited. (So much of what I found fun consisted of activities that someone had proscribed, activities not likely allowed in heaven.) Even if one could stretch that enjoyment out for a few million years, what happened when boredom set in? Also, as a high school student during the turbulent 1960s, I had my first exposure to Marx’ critique of religion as the opiate of the masses. Marx, with considerable insight, recognized that capitalists often relied upon the Christian promise of heaven as pie in the sky as an inexpensive way to pacify their exploited workers.

When I began to self-identify as a Christian, I struggled to find a meaningful concept of heaven, believing the idea integral to Christianity. In seminary, those struggles became more intense as I grappled with how to comfort the bereaved. Spatial definitions of heaven never resonated with me. Theological descriptions of a spiritual existence outside of time and space sounded like code words that theologians used when they had no more of an idea about heaven than I did. The prospect of endlessly enjoying God struck me as vaguely analogous to harp playing: no matter how wonderful the experience, after some extended duration – no years with which to measure since heaven existed outside of time – I would probably tire of it. Every joy and pleasure I have ever experienced has waned with the passing of time. The thought of watching an endless sunset from a comfortable chair situated on the porch of a house on a semi-tropical island, sipping the beverage of my choice, surrounded by loved ones, and engaged in stimulating conversation often holds much appeal. However, I know that after about a week of similar moments spent cherishing actual sunsets I am ready to pick up the pace of life and to seek new pleasures.

Gradually, I realized that ideas associated with resuscitation and not resurrection shaped most of my thinking about heaven. Resuscitation restores a dead body to life, as when timely defibrillation, perhaps accompanied by the administration of CPR, restores a heart attack victim to life. In the Bible, we read about the resuscitation of the widow of Nain’s son, of Lazarus, and of a man who fell asleep during a sermon (a symbolic warning more preachers need to heed?). This tendency of humans to think about heaven in terms of resuscitation instead of resurrection did not greatly surprise me. Humans can only think in human, finite terms. We have experience of this life, not of heaven. Consequently, talk of heaven and resurrection generally sounds more like resuscitation than genuine resurrection. Perhaps this is why the resurrected Jesus portrayed in the gospels seems so paradoxical. In those narratives, Thomas touches Jesus but Jesus passes through solid walls; Jesus eats but appears as if out of nowhere. Those paradoxes force us, when honest, to put aside our finite understandings and to acknowledge our inability to say much about resurrection.

Perhaps, at most, we can affirm three truths about resurrection. First, whatever resurrection denotes is dynamic not static. Busy, stressful lives may cause us to yearn for static pleasures. Newton’s first law – every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed – can seem true of humans. There are times when I feel that Onslow, a character in the British TV comedy As Time Goes By Keeping Up Appearances, seems to lead an idyllic existence, spending his days sleeping late, watching the telly, drinking beer, and playing the horses. No problem is of sufficient urgency or importance to disturb or to interrupt him. For me, Onslow models inertia at least as well as any non-comatose human. Unfortunately for those who long for constancy, quantum physics maintains that Newton’s laws are not completely correct. Stasis is more apparent than real, energy and matter are integrally related, and dynamism permeates the universe. Life itself is constantly changing. The dominant metaphor for what follows resurrection, new life, offers no reason to think the future will be more static than is the present. Because this life is the only life that we know, attempts to describe new life – or heaven – necessarily yield ideas that resemble resuscitation more than authentic new life.

Second, whatever resurrection may denote, resurrection is good. Jesus, the one by whose name I call myself and on whom I try to model my life, experienced resurrection and points us toward resurrection,. This world in which problems seem to outnumber solutions needs hope. The media, and too many preachers, regularly recite depressing litanies of the personal problems and social evils that afflict us. Even more depressing, usually when I manage to extinguish one fire in my life, a new one has already begun to blaze. When I begin to treat some people more justly, I find I am exploiting others. When peacemakers negotiate an end to one war, another war inevitably erupts. When scientists find a cure for one disease, bacteria and viruses morph and new diseases appear. Thank God, the world is dynamic and resurrection gives us a glimpse of a better future.

Finally, resurrection is for today. I still do not know what to think about heaven. I remain uncertain about life after death. I wonder what God's justice and love hold for the future. Occasionally I ponder those questions. More frequently, I contemplate how best to describe resurrection, what human words, what finite concepts, can communicate that ineffable mystery. Daily, however, I live with the knowledge that Jesus’ disciples, hundreds of them according to the scriptural narratives, personally experienced Jesus’ resurrection. Without those disciples, the Church would not exist. Their experience of resurrection means that God has not let go of the world, that God remains engaged with us and the world, committed to establishing justice and to building a community of genuine love. I, belonging to that nascent community experience this same resurrection through the Church, its people and its sacraments as I seek to love mercy, do kindness, and to walk humbly with God. This sure and certain hope forms the trajectory of my life today. Tomorrow belongs to God.

The Rev. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, with tours at sea, with the Marine Corps, on the staff of the Chief of Chaplains, on exchange with the Royal Navy in London, as the senior Protestant chaplain at the Naval Academy, and as the senior chaplain at the Naval Postgraduate School. He taught philosophy at the Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School.

By Jennifer McKenzie

Last night at my church we began a forum series called ‘Evil: Reflection, Discussion, and Prayer.’ There is a technical term in theological circles for this kind of study. It’s called ‘Theodicy.’ Basically, theodicy is the religious-philosophical engagement of trying to reconcile how evil can be at work in the world when we believe that there is a loving, benevolent God in charge. Theodicy takes for granted that both evil and God exist – but what is not taken for granted is that we often lack an understanding of how the two interplay and what exactly our role is in the struggle against evil forces: cosmic, systemic, and personal.

OK, so that’s the intellectual description of our six-week forum. But here’s the real deal: if you want people to sit up and take notice and to come to the darned thing, you have to advertise. And if you are going to advertise a series like that you can’t go putting up a sign that reads, “Theodicy forum.” Because if you did people will respond with either complete disinterest or they will cock their heads ever so slightly and go, “huh?” Either way the result would be the same: no one except a couple of theology geeks would show up. So, the couple of us theology geeks who are taking the lead in presenting this series made the decision to hang an attention-grabbing banner on the fence of the church that reads, “EVIL: Reflection, Discussion, and Prayer.” The word EVIL was in huge bold white letters that spanned the top line of the black banner. The other words were in a smaller font that ran just underneath. We knew it would be edgy but we also knew it would be clear. That was our goal. Our hope and expectation was that we would draw a sizable number of folks from outside of the church – in other words, that this would be a topic of interest to those not even connected with the church so that they would be drawn in for a reasoned, careful discussion of something that is mysterious yet prescient. If the first night of the series is any indication, then our expectations were met. However, the unintended consequence was that the sign has caused a bit of an uproar from within the congregation and staff. People are polarized over this banner that hangs on the church fence in very public view that reads in big bold letters, “EVIL.”

Well, on the one hand, “duh…” but on the other hand, why the uproar? Really. Is it just because some folks think the banner is in poor taste? Or do more folks think that the subject matter is in poor taste? One thoughtful and sincere colleague asked, “Would you have hung that banner up at Christmas?” Well, no. But then again neither would I have hung an Easter banner up at Christmas, or a Christmas banner up at Easter. But that’s not the point, and I think her question gets at the REAL issue: As Christians in this day and age, we want to focus on a God who is loving and benevolent. We want a feel-good experience of church. And I agree that is important – but not in isolation and not in a way that fails to acknowledge the whole truth. I think that the real problem behind the ‘shock’ of this banner is that in the church we tend to want to make nice, and to focus only on the good. But to do so completely ignores the very real fact that evil does exist and that we are frequently co-opted by evil. We are only human after all, and as St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “…I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:14b-15, 18b-19)

Archbishop William Temple once wrote, “The church is the only society that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.” At Christ Church we have taken that saying and simplified it to say, “We exist for those who are not here yet.” I think this is a really good way for us as a church to understand who we are and who we are called to serve. And, if we take this mantra to heart then we must realize that to ignore the reality of Evil is to ignore the reality of the world that most people live in today: a world of deception, of addiction, of chaotic lives and of subjection to political powers that lack integrity and that are engaged in way of terrorism.

For example, we were privileged last night at our first forum on this topic to hear from Fr. Joseph Garang-Atem, a Sudanese Anglican priest and from The Reverend Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal missionary to the Sudan from the Diocese of Virginia. They spoke to us about the atrocities of the genocide in the Sudan and the church’s response to it. Interestingly, it was the ‘outsiders’, the ones who came to this forum who have never been to our church before, who were most engaged in the dialogue with our guests.

Let’s face it churchy folks, Evil is real and persistent, and it is a force that must be reckoned with – both from within the church and from without. Think about the work of Ghandi who stood against the evil of racism and social class in South Africa and among the people of India and who fostered inter-religious dialogue, who even died for the cause – and while great awareness was raised and changes initiated, racism still persisted. Think about Archbishop Desmond Tutu who later similarly stood against the apartheid that continued in South Africa and in response fostered the work of the truth and reconciliation commission. Neither of these men would deny that there is a force of Evil at work in the world and that there is a clear need for the church to respond.

There is no nice way to say it. If we ignore the reality of evil then rather than embracing the notion that ‘we exist for those who are not here yet’, we are in fact embracing a self-serving attitude of a feel-good religion. And a feel-good religion is a mostly impotent religion that will find great difficulty in offering healing, support, and consolation to the multitudes around the world and just outside our doors who are hurting and even dying in the face of Evil.

The Rev. Jennifer McKenzie is on the staff of Christ Church, Alexandria, Va, and keeps the blog, The Reverend Mother.